


King's Cross Phenomenon (A Prompt For YOU)

by DarkTARDIS



Series: Crappy One-Shots Galore [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Dark Harry, Epilogue What Epilogue, Gen, Grey Harry, HP: EWE, Harry Is A Horcrux, Harry's Horcrux, Horcruxes, Major Spoilers | Spoilers, Merged Horcrux, Not Epilogue Compliant, One-Shot, PLEASE ADOPT, Plot Bunny, Plot Devices, Prompt Fic, Self Prompt, Work Up For Adoption, prompt, soul-merging, story idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4139307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkTARDIS/pseuds/DarkTARDIS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <strong>!---! MAJOR SPOILERS !---!</strong>
</p>
<p>Due to the prolonged intimate contact between Harry's soul and Voldemort's horcrux, Harry's soul 'adopts' the horcrux in a way, and heals some of its damage. This makes the King's Cross death scene rather interesting.</p>
<p>-----------------------------------------<br/>Like my story From Eventide to Daybreak, this is a STORY IDEA, and so only a PARTIAL story, and not in any way complete. It ends abruptly, with a very open ending. It was created to be adopted. So please adopt! I'd love to see this plot bunny play out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	King's Cross Phenomenon (A Prompt For YOU)

**Author's Note:**

> _**Disclaimer:** I do not own_ Harry Potter _in any way, shape, or form. I am not affiliated in any way to those that do own it. This fan-created story includes many verbatim and paraphrased quotes from_ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, _pages 704-707, written by J.K. Rowling, and some verbatim and paraphrased quotes from_ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 _movie._

"Harry Potter," Voldemort said softly, voice blending with the crackling fire. "The Boy-Who-Lived... come to die."

The Death Eaters were still. Hagrid, silenced and bound to the tree, still struggled, and Bellatrix's chest heaved with a rapture Harry distantly found repugnant in such a way only Bellatrix could inspire. Voldemort and Harry's eyes were connected in a suffocating stare, and Harry wondered if the monster could hear Harry's pulse pounding from across the fire.

Harry blinked, feeling like everything was in slow-motion, and realized Voldemort had raised his wand. Voldemort's head was tilted to the side, as if curious what would happen, if this attempt to kill Harry would actually work. Harry glanced at the wand for the briefest of moments before he returned his gaze to the blood red eyes, determined that his fear would not show, and he gritted his teeth,  _I will not show weakness--_

A movement of lips, a flash of vivid green light, and everything was gone.

* * *

 

He was face-down, entirely alone. There were no sounds to be heard, no people to see him. He wasn't sure if he really was fully there, himself. 

A good while later, or perhaps in no time at all, it occurred to him that he must be there, more than just disembodied thought, because he could definitely feel that he was lying down on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and whatever it was that he was touching existed, as well.

Alongside this conclusion, came the realization that Harry was naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it did provide him with a sense of intrigue. He wondered whether, since he could feel, he would also be able to see. He opened his eyes, for he did have eyes, and discovered that he could.

He was lying in a bright mist, a mist unlike any he'd ever seen before. His surroundings were not hidden by the cloudy vapor; rather, the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into his surroundings. The floor seemed to be white, and neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a blank something on which to be.

He sat up. His body appeared to be unscathed. He reached up to touch his face, and realized he wasn't wearing any glasses.

A noise suddenly reached him, piercing the silence and unformed nothingness surrounding him. He was unsure if it simply hadn't been there before, or if he was only just hearing it. It was the small, soft thumping sounds of something that flailed and struggled. It was a pitiful sound, and Harry had an inexplicable sense that the thing causing it was very important to him. At the same time, the noise made him very uncomfortable, as if he were eavesdropping on something shameful.

He wished he were clothed.

The wish had barely registered in his mind when a set of robes appeared next to him. He stood up, took them and put them on. They were clean, luxuriously soft, and warm. It was rather extraordinary, how they had simply appeared, right when he'd wanted them.

He looked around. Was he in some sort of great Room of Requirement? The longer he looked, the more there was to see. A high, domed glass roof glittered in sunlight above him. All was hushed and still, besides the strange thumping noise that equally drew him and repulsed him, which came from somewhere nearby in the mist. 

He turned slowly, taking in all the details he could. His surroundings seemed to invent themselves before his eyes: a wide open space, very clean, vaster than the Great Hall at Hogwarts, and brightly lit from the light coming through the glass ceiling. There were chairs, placed at seemingly random intervals throughout the room, and bits of railing here and there. There seemed to be no one else with him except - 

He flinched slightly. He had found the thing that had been making the strange sounds all this time. It seemed to be a small child, naked and curled on the ground. Its skin was strange: raw, flayed and rough, yet with strips that seemed to be as healthy and pink as a newborn babe's. It lay shivering, unwanted and abandoned beneath a seat, stuffed out of sight and struggling for breath. 

Harry was a bit afraid of it, and yet there was something about it that seemed to call to him. As helpless and injured as it looked, something about it screamed to him that it was dangerous, and so he did not want to approach it, but inexplicably he felt that  _not_  approaching it would be just as dangerous, if not more so, than leaving it alone. 

Knowing that it could be a trick but still unable to help himself, he drew slowly closer to the child, the feeling that he was doing the right thing growing stronger with every step. Soon he was near enough to it that he could touch it, if he so desired. He deliberated as to whether or not he should. It still both repulsed him and drew him, called to him and rejected him.

He could see the peels in its skin: edged in black, revealing bloodied muscles beneath, and he could see the healthy strips, as if someone had trailed the tip of a wand in swirling patterns, healing only what skin it touched. Harry knew he ought to comfort it, as much as anyone knew they ought to comfort a hurting child, but that was not what was drawing him to it. He felt drawn to those healthy parts, as if he were responsible for them, somehow. Fascinated, he reached out to touch --

"You cannot help."

Harry whirled around to face the intruder – and for some inexplicable reason the interruption irritated him greatly – to see a most shocking sight. Albus Dumbledore, who had died a year before, stood before him, and was obviously the one who had spoken.

The words faintly echoed in the large room, punctuated by the child’s flails.

Harry stared at the man for a moment, or at least what felt like a moment. Dumbledore was dead. He knew that. So how was he…

_Bloody hell_.

“You’re dead,” Harry stated unnecessarily.

Dumbledore’s smiled.

“Quite so, my boy.”

“…I’m dead, too, then, aren't I?” Harry asked quietly. He couldn't remember exactly what had happened: something to do with _‘I open at the close’_ and a flash of green light. However, it was hard to think due to the insistent pull to the child-thing.

“Ah, an excellent question. Not quite, I should think,” replied Dumbledore, eyes twinkling with just as much enthusiasm as in life. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Vaguely,” Harry answered distractedly, glancing back at the hurt child.

“Harry,” Dumbledore called to him. The tone of his voice made Harry turn back.

“Sir?”

Dumbledore’s eyes were no longer twinkling but imploring, and he was looking at him with concern.

“Come away from that, my boy. There’s nothing you can do for it.”

Absolutely not. Nearly everything within Harry recoiled from the thought of doing that. Instead, Harry countered with a question.

“What is it, sir?” He wanted to know why it was drawing him to it, and why he felt like it had something he _needed._ While parts of it certainly seemed to disgust him, there were other parts that he felt it would be a grave mistake to abandon. Like it was a _part_ of him.

Dumbledore seemed bothered that he was taking an interest in the thing, but he answered.

“It is an abomination to both magic and nature; it is beyond our help, and must be left to fade.”

Harry blinked at his explanation, and his eyes widened as he thought about what that implied. It must be Tom Riddle’s horcrux. But why would it contain what he knew to be inexplicably _him_?

“Come, Harry. There is much to discuss.”

Harry considered that the strange pull to the horcrux and feeling it was _him_ could simply be because he had lived with it so long, that his soul thought it to be part of him.

Harry took one hesitant step forward, away from the horcrux, and grimaced at the wrenching feeling inside his very being. No, the feeling of a misplaced belonging was not illusion, and there was definitely something of him within that disgusting horcrux.

“Are you alright, my boy?”

Harry turned back toward the horcrux.

“Something’s wrong, professor.”

Dumbledore stepped next to him, and when Harry looked over at him, the professor was looking at him, as if he was avoiding looking in the direction of the horcrux.

“Yes, it is very wrong, indeed. Tom made a grave mistake in creating his horcruxes.”

Great, Dumbledore misunderstood him.

“No, sir – I mean, yes, sir, but that’s not what I meant.” Harry stared at the flailing thing, tracing his eyes over the refreshed skin.

“What’s wrong, Harry?”

“I can't – I don't know how to explain. Just, sir, look at it. I can't – I can't leave it, it’s me! It’s him, but it’s me!”

Dumbledore’s expression grew alarmed, and he reluctantly turned his eyes toward the abomination, cringing slightly when he saw it. It was clear in Harry’s peripheral vision that he did not want to look at it, but nevertheless he looked upon Harry’s request.

“The skin, sir… It’s… It’s mixed. It’s not just his, it’s mine; I know it is. I can _feel_ it.”

Dumbledore looked shocked, then horrified, then pained, then so very, very old. It was clear to Harry that he knew what that must mean, and he knew it must have something to do with him, because the last time he’d seen that face was in Snape’s memory, when he knew there was no hope for Harry. That made Harry incredibly nervous.

“What is it, sir?”

“Oh my boy…” Dumbledore’s eyes were shining with unshed tears, and he closed them. “In death, thinking it through, I thought perhaps you would… And you would have, if not for…”

Harry filled with a sort of blank dread at the words. Whatever it was that Dumbledore was having trouble saying must be horrific.

Dumbledore reopened his eyes and sat down upon a chair Harry hadn't realized was there. There was no convenient chair for Harry to sit down upon except the one the horcrux flailed under, but he didn't feel much like sitting anyway.

“When Tom created his horcruxes… the process was not clean. He did not merely slice pieces from his main soul, but rather dug into the wounds created by murder and forcefully tore pieces from it. The damage to his main soul and the horcruxes themselves were significant.”

Harry listened to Dumbledore intently, trying to ignore the call of the horcrux. Dumbledore continued.

“This horcrux has the appearance of a child because it is small… There was not much left of Tom’s soul to create a horcrux with. The skin appears flayed and damaged because the soul piece is flayed and damaged…” He trailed off, eyes reflecting deep turmoil.

“And… the healed skin?” Harry asked with trepidation.

“Harry… No one in recorded history has ever infused a horcrux with living being, much less a being with a _soul_ : a human… You are clearly drawn to it, and you say… the good skin is ‘you’?”

Harry thought for a moment, considering the horcrux again.

“Yes.”

Dumbledore’s expression was grave.

“Then my boy, the logical explanation… is that the healed skin is _truly_ you. A horcrux, a vastly damaged, tiny piece of a human soul was attached to you, and to _your_ soul, another human. It would make sense if your soul began to… adopt it, heal it. When you create only one horcrux, the main soul can patch or even mend area, just as with a wound from committing murder. The idea that a separate, whole soul can mend a small broken piece of soul… It isn't far-fetched.”

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not add a few chapters later, showing various directions this story could take.
> 
> How about that abrupt ending? Sorry about that. I didn't want to take it too far, though, and I felt that was a good stopping point for someone else to pick it up.
> 
> Explanations:  
> Basically, I made up some shit about how horcruxes and souls work. So, in my story, the direct prolonged intimate contact between Harry's complete and undamaged soul with Tom's tiny, mutilated horcrux caused Harry's soul to basically "adopt" it as part of his own, and begin to heal it as much as it could, the same as it would a wound in its own self. A soul with a horcrux already torn from it wouldn't be able to heal the soul piece at all, but since Harry's soul was completely whole, it was able to do so to a certain extent. A soul "heals" itself by basically patching over the damaged parts from other places in the soul, essentially "spreading" itself over the wounds and blending together. I realize that logic has flaws, but I don't particularly feel like coming up with something that makes perfect sense now that I've finished this one-shot, as it would require me to essentially completely rewrite the thing. I write for fun; if it's a chore, I don't want to do it.
> 
> Other comments:  
> I feel like Dumbledore's characterization is extremely two-dimensional, and that's bothering me. The problem is, it's difficult to write him in a more positive light. I'm an avid reader of evil/manipulative/controlling Dumbledore fics, because I honestly hate the man. So, don't complain if you dislike the way Dumbledore is written, because I could've easily made him a complete bastard. However, for the purposes of this story and because I know how irritating it is when someone bashes a character I like, I tried to keep a neutral light on him. Hopefully I succeeded, even if his character is flat.  
> The main way I see this story going is Harry ignores the protests of Dumbledore, who says that the horcrux having 'absorbed' only a small portion of his soul(less than a true horcrux), as horrific as it is, he should just leave it and move on to the next life. Dumbledore doesn't want Harry to be tainted by Tom's evil, and if Harry reabsorbed the parts of his soul that had spread to and mixed with the horcrux, he would also absorb the parts of the horcrux his soul had healed. Harry realizes that with that logic, he'd already been 'tainted' with it before he'd died, and what Dumbledore really wants is to remove that taint. But Harry doesn't think there was anything wrong with him before he'd died, so it must not have been that bad. So Harry reaches out like he wanted to do in the first place, touching the healed part of the horcrux. What Harry didn't know, was that if he did that, it was automatic choosing to return to life. So as his soul painfully reasserted itself into him, he was returned to his mortal body.  
> I don't really know where it goes after that, but I do know that somehow his actually knowledge of being 'tainted' with Tom's soul allows the 'taint' to shine through more. If you're extremely familiar with how the killing scene plays out in the book and movie, you'll already have noticed some subtle changes to Harry's character and reactions. Those changes will be more obvious once he's resurrected.
> 
> Again, I know my explanations are full of holes. If you adopt it, feel free to fix my shit. I know it's shit, lol.
> 
> **PLEASE ADOPT!** I'm sorry if I've driven you crazy, rambling on in these notes, but it's extra idea info for anyone who wants to adopt. Obviously, you don't _have_ to take it in the direction I described, as post-adoption it would then be your story and not mine, but I'd love it if you did something similar. :)


End file.
